ISLAMABAD, 11 April 2003 — Pakistan said yesterday the Iraqi people should have control over their country, as international attention focused on an interim setup in Iraq after a virtual takeover of Baghdad by a US-led coalition.

“We want early end to hostilities. We want the Iraqi people to have control of their country and we want UN to play a role,” Foreign Office spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan told AFP.

Khan did not say what role exactly Pakistan, a non-permanent member of the Security Council, would like for the United Nations in Iraq.

Pakistan had opposed military action in Iraq and called for the resolution of the Iraqi crisis through the UN.

When asked if Pakistan’s government was considering closing Iraq’s mission in view of the fall of Baghdad, the Foreign Office spokesman said the embassy in Islamabad was still functioning.

Meanwhile, religious leaders yesterday expressed grief at the fall of Baghdad and called on the Iraqi people to resist US designs to “enslave them.”

“We pray that Iraqis would continue to resist American tyranny and terror and we believe victory will come to them in the long run,” Qazi Hussain Ahmed of the six-party Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) religious alliance told AFP.

“History would record the sacrifice of Iraqi people in defense of their sovereignty and independence threatened by US imperialism,” Ahmed said.

It is a sad day, he said, but Muslims everywhere believed the masses in Iraq would never accept “slavery, usurpation of their old resources and occupation of their territory by US and British forces.”

“The attack was motivated by US designs to grab oil resources of the Iraqi people and enslave them,” he said.

Hafiz Hussain Ahmad, a leader of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) and a prominent figure in MMA, also regretted the fall of Baghdad to the US/UK forces in a fight which he said was “highly unequal battle.”

He said the United States had committed “aggression” on Afghanistan but the Afghans were still putting up resistance against “foreign occupation.”

“We are hopeful that Muslims in Iraq will never surrender their freedom to the invaders,” he said. Ahmad added however that Muslim countries had suffered as a result of dictatorships of which the rule of President Saddam Hussein was a clear illustration.

“If Saddam had done justice to his people, probably he would not have suffered this fate,” he said.

JUI led a violent campaign against US-led military intervention in Afghanistan in 2001. The MMA formed last year has been demanding the evacuation of bases given to United States forces in Pakistan for logistical support to operations in Afghanistan.

The alliance has sponsored a series of massive public demonstrations in recent weeks against invasion of Iraq by a US-led coalition.